by Kit Reed
“Don’t!”
But she finishes anyway. I’m not telling you this because I enjoy it. I’m telling you to keep you safe! You can’t be there, you two with your heads together, you and that dirty boy.
“He’s not a boy!”
Right, Mormama. Diss the man and vanish. She lays this down inside my head, like a flower on a fresh grave. They’re all boys to me.
“Besides,” I tell her. “He hasn’t been back, so shut up,” I said and I was begging because I needed at least one other guy around here, but he wasn’t anywhere.
The old bitch strikes back.
Oh, yes he has.
CHAPTER 12
Lane
Nice-looking man comes ambling along May Street at just the right time, the first good thing that’s happened since I moved back into the kingdom of the aunts. Their clocks rewound the second I walked in. I’m ten years old again, poor little orphan girl, beholden. Which I am, since they cashed in my escape fund to feed this monstrous house. And will be, until I grapple my new Ikea workstation out of the car and in the front door.
He stops to watch. OK, I am a spectacle. Buff woman failing to budge the box, which the guys at Ikea slipped into my hatchback slicker than a greased manatee. He’s not staring, exactly. He’s just waiting to see what happens.
Dude, would you please go away so I can do this? It’s a matter of pride. This shouldn’t be a problem, but it is.
My next move— call it my hope for the future— is wedged into my car tighter than a cork in a wine bottle. It’ll take six winged monkeys to assemble the thing after I get it in the house, which is another problem. I can’t afford the yard man, who comes back to do certain things for the aunts, and I’m damned if I’ll ask them to front for it. I’ll manage. I’m getting used to managing on my own. And the new desk I can’t afford for the refurbished laptop and bottom-of-the-line printer I bought on credit?
Cheap at the price. Equipment for Operation Job Search. Anything to spring us from the ancestral roach motel, where nobody and nothing has changed since I was fourteen. This is essential equipment. If I can get it out of the damn car.
“Wait, let me.”
My hands freeze on the carton. “I’ve got this, OK?”
I drove the hell down the coast and inland to Orlando to get the impressively oversized workstation, accent on work. Yep, ladies, I’m making a statement.
The drive was easy. The hard part was getting out of the house before they cut me off at the pass. Rosemary and Iris intersected me in the front hall, a classic pincer maneuver, with Ivy shuttling back and forth behind them on Scooter, afraid I’d never come back. The twins closed in on me with dripping coffee mugs: where was I going, I was buying a what? Why would I want to drag a piece of junk like that into a beautiful place like this. The Preservation Society comes every year because this is a fine old family home and all the best people in Jacksonville come flocking every tenth of June. We keep everything just the way Little Manette had it, it’s our sacred duty, Little Elena.
Like the flock of overflowing ashtrays and flat-screen TVs in every sacred room have been here ever since Dakin carried Manette over the mahogany threshold in 1893. Elena, you hear?
“Don’t call me that.”
They never learn. “Elena Ellis Upchurch Hale, do you hear?”
“It’s not my name!”
“Honor your mother, Elena.”
“Lane!”
“After everything we’ve done for you!”
The fight with the great-aunts took twelve years off my life because? Because this is my first stab at pretending I have one in this house. Life, I mean, now that I’m temporarily shackled here, and without the bonds they’d mysteriously cashed without my signature, beholden.
I need the machine so I can follow up leads from here and the workstation to make it official: Don’t bother me, I’m working.
They had a hissy fit when I explained. Warden Rosemary: “Elena, you can’t.”
“I am.”
General Iris: “In the room where our beloved Sister died? Sweetie, it’s a sacrilege.”
I grabbed my son. “Come on, Theo. Let’s go.”
In the end I had to leave Theo with them, my son the living hostage, promissory note, whatever it took. He glared at me like a trapped groundhog. Poor kid!
Finally I dangled the idea Haircut Needed, and Iris snapped at the bait. Poor Theo, with his face clenched in that I-will-never-forgive-you glare. Oh, dude! Sorry, but this is the only way out. I made it to Orlando, I made it back, and I will damn well make it up to you, but now that I’m out here on May Street in broad daylight, struggling with our Get Out of Jail Free card, why are you not out here with me, wrangling it into the house?
Nice voice: “Please, let me.”
“What!” It comes out more like eek. God this is embarrassing. “It’s OK, I’ve got this, thanks.” Yeah, I don’t, but I have to look as if I do.
It’s Pavlovian. If the great-aunts saw this tall, easygoing stranger coming up the front walk with me, they’d freak. He can’t come in! They reek of fear, all three of them. After Mom died they ramped up the lectures, like I was their job. They said, Never talk to strangers, but they meant strange men. Unless, and I can’t get to the bottom of it, they just meant men. But the twins meant what they said when they told me, You don’t know where they came from or what they’re up to or what they want. They’ve kept at it year-round since I was eight. Do it this way. Wear that. Watch out for this, for that, and in the name of God don’t embarrass us. And don’t think you can go out wearing that.
You’d think I was a rhesus monkey they could imprint.
Well, nobody imprints me.
Meanwhile this nice guy hangs in place like a cursor on my screen, waiting for me to decide. He looks OK, great face, with just enough things wrong with it— scar through the eyebrow, nose off-kilter— to keep it real. Besides, this carton is fighting to win. I stand back. God, I am embarrassed. In seconds he has it upended on the walk. Blush. Gasp. “Thanks so much!”
“No problem.”
Great smile, too. Faded T-shirt. Tech logo I don’t recognize. Black jeans worn silver at the knees. This new man is easy in his body, but. What. Tentative. “Let me get it up those steps for you, OK? And if you want, I’ll help you get it into the house.” Another great, hesitant smile. “If that’s OK.”
“Thanks, but I’d better take it from here.” The bleached eyes, the bemused look make me add, “Ordinarily I’d.” Put your shoulder to it, bitch. “Um.” Shove. Pause for breath. Return his smile. “See, the relatives are…” How can I explain the part that I know but won’t tell anyone? Apologetic shrug. “A little weird.”
“No prob.” He aims the box at the gate for me and slides it through.
Just then I hear Iris shrilling from inside. “Elena, who’s out there?”
I did what I had to. I put my shoulder to the box. Born xenophobes, those bitches. They never change. Nobody calls me Elena, but they can’t be taught. No, won’t.
Warden Rosemary barks, “Elena.”
General Iris: “Elena Ellis Upchurch Hale, get in here!”
Even poor old Ivy is on my case, but I can’t make out what she just said.
For Ivy’s sake, I call. “In a minute, OK?” Bunch your muscles, lady, lean into that box. God damn you, Barry Hale, for getting me pregnant in the middle of senior year. I thought you were forever and this was true love. OK, I thought it was the great escape. Freedom from May Street with all that this implies. A life.
For twelve years I coped with the baby, the chores, the half-dozen moves, the suits you needed for the next big thing, the side trips, because your business was too important to explain. Well damn you and damn your online stock market trades and God damn you to hell for taking charge of the finances, you were all, “Sweetheart, I’ve got this.”
As if.
Shove. Six inches.
Asshole! You said you knew what you were doing, you and your night-scho
ol MBA, but you didn’t know shit, how could I not see that? I didn’t find out that you’d defaulted on the mortgage until the bank foreclosed— split seconds after you took off for North Wherever just beyond Out of Here some time between midnight and 5 A.M., while Theo and I were dead asleep.
“Drop that thing and come on up here.” All three of them are out front watching. Hoik. Shove!
Iris shrills, “Right now, you hear!”
Shove. Another foot.
It was tough after Barry left but I thought Theo and I could make it. After all, the house was paid off. I could get something, temp agency, sell houses, work in Walmart or bag groceries at the Publix, scrub floors if I had to, anything to make enough to keep the two of us afloat, I could …
“Elena!”
Faster, Lane. Woman, put your back into it. You don’t want them coming out here, all cranked up to call 911.
Then the bank sent someone to nail their FOR SALE sign on the front of what I thought was our house.
What difference did it make, by that time trucks had come for all the cool furniture you bought on credit when we moved to Daytona, “Perfect for our new love nest, honey,” charges deferred for up to a year. Apologetic, the repo men, tsk-tsking around their cigars. The only thing they left was the car.
Thoughtful, asshole! So, what. Did you think Theo and I could live out of the trunk, wash in the park fountain and sleep in a different parking lot every night?
The screen door opens. “Elena, stop dawdling!”
Oh, shit.
“You sure you don’t need a hand?”
“Who is that bum?”
Snap!
Twenty years of instant replay on fast-forward, and I’m only halfway up the walk. Now, handsome stranger back there is offering to help, but from a distance. Nice guy, it’s just a little weird, him standing outside the gate like a vampire waiting to be invited in.
“I’m fine,” I tell him because they’re on the sill, rolling Ivy out on the porch. Move fast, or they’ll come down here, level cannon, all, “Fire in the hold.” I lean into the carton and move it two feet, living proof that I’m FINE. “I just needed a minute to catch my breath.”
General Iris chugs out the door with Warden Rosemary at her side, both of them glowering and loaded for bear. If our general had an Uzi she’d aim it at my midsection and cut me in half. “Elena, who is that man?” She lifts her chin and throws her voice over my head, to make certain he hears. “Whoever you are, we don’t want any, go away!”
Humiliated, I turn to apologize, but the walk is empty except for me and the carton. It’s as if he was never there.
CHAPTER 13
Mormama
I was never welcome in this house. Odd, how long it’s been since I walked through those front doors into my daughter’s overblown temple to material things. Odd that of all of those who died here but remain trapped here, only I endure.
Mother took Little Manette’s wedding out of my hands. I was necessary but not welcome, even then. I wanted to give Manette’s wedding party in Mother’s house on Tradd Street, but they would have none of it. I warned that our finances were precarious, but they didn’t care. Mother borrowed all over Charleston to please the girl and when it was done, she invited me to lunch. She commanded creamed chicken on toast points, frilly linens and the second-best silver on the long porch, and she glared at Margaret until she went back inside.
Then she leaned across the table, all perfumed and smiling, and said, “Honey, Little Manette and I went ahead with the arrangements, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.” She did it without a care, because she knew who they would come to when it was time to collect. “Don’t look at me like that! You know we couldn’t count on you to do like ladies do.”
So my daughter married Dakin Ellis at St. Michael’s Church, where all the best weddings took place, full choir, altar banked with gardenias and white orchids, with, at the Carolina Yacht Club, set luncheons and champagne for a hundred guests. Dainty Manette used the silver Millard family cake knife to cut into a cake the size of Fort Sumter, and she cut a piece of wedding cake for me to sleep on, slipping it into my purse with a spiteful grin.
Then my only living child bestowed a cold, mock hug and a pretend-kiss and she and handsome young Dakin walked out of my life and into her grand new house near the St. Johns River in Jacksonville without so much as a thank-you or a come-down-and-see-us-sometime. Dakin gave her too many babies too fast. I knew, although I wasn’t told.
I’d sent violet-sprigged notepaper for her birthday, but she never wrote. Oh, she did offer to bring “dearest Mama” down to see her first great-grandchild, but they both knew that was out of the question. Mother had taken to her bed, it was too hard a trip; by that time Margaret was gone and I was taking care of Mother in the Ware house on Tradd Street. It was all we had left. I offered to come, but Manette tsk-tsked, “We couldn’t possibly tear you away from dearest Mama.”
When she had Randolph I wrote, but Little Manette sent a polite note: “Oh no, the trip would be too much for you,” the only time I saw those violets on an envelope. After Everett, they had Teddy, and next, oopsy-daisy, the twins. Twins! When the twins came I offered again. This time, Dakin wrote. The letter was typewritten on office stationery— by his secretary, I suppose, although he did sign it in sepia ink to confirm his intentions. Never mind what he wrote. He meant, don’t bother, I’d only be in the way.
Then Little Manette had Leah. Too soon! Nobody bothered to tell me; I came upon the card among Mother’s things months after she died. All of Manette Senior’s bad debts had come home to roost, and to satisfy them, the bank foreclosed on the house.
This time, I didn’t offer to help with the children. I went. I sent a telegram the day I hired a carriage to take me and my things to the train station. It said, ENROUTE FROM CHARLESTON. COMING TO HELP.
By the time Western Union rang the bell, I was halfway to Jacksonville, with the last of my money and my diamonds in the tapestry bag, and the rest in the baggage car, a steamer trunk and three suitcases, one woman alone, with nowhere else to go. It was a hard trip, longer than any trip should be. I was weeping with exhaustion by the time I arrived at the house. At first sight it was gorgeous, white as a wedding cake and decorated like one, and, Lord, Dakin had lined his children up on the porch to welcome me!
Well, you know how that went. He groaned as he watched the men unloading my suitcases from the carriage, and I did not have the heart to tell him about the steamer trunk.
Then Dakin drove the first nail in the coffin, although we did not know it at the time, repeating under his breath as he opened the great front door for me, “… One more Mama than we need,” making clear that Little Manette was “Mama” now, and I cannot tell you why my heart clenched, only that I was afraid of the great house I was entering and what it might contain. I teetered on the sill. I couldn’t go in; I couldn’t flee. Ever the gentleman, heedless Dakin grasped my elbow and ushered me into the maw. In all the winters of my life, in all these years in my daughter’s house, I’ve never been so cold.
He looked down at me, concerned. “You’re trembling.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, and Mother rushed into my head, triumphant. Now, say what ladies say.
“You must be tired.”
Now. “What a lovely house!”
“Oh, please.” He waved me into the slipper chair. “Here.”
“I’m sorry, I’m.” I don’t know what I was.
“I’ll fetch Tillie to see to you.” Dakin tugged on a fringed bellpull and a sweet little colored girl came. “Please show Mrs. Robichaux to her room.”
My heart went out. I tried, “Thank you.”
Dakin’s face was a revelation. Pride fought with pleasure and pain as he said, “Well, I guess you’re here to stay.”
Now they’re gone and I’m still here, whether as victim or mistress, I don’t know, shuttling back and forth, up and down in this ghastly house. I am either subject to undercroft
or fixed in place to oppose it, but there is nobody living or dead who can tell me which.
Whether from the pressure of responsibility or by the power of love, I am in this house for a reason. That, at least, I know. An essential part of my poor, dear Teddy is still here, trapped down there, under the cement they poured to cover the spot where he died, and I can not go until God frees us both. We can’t go. I am here for Teddy’s soul and all the others trapped here, living and dead.
I’m here to defend them all from the forces stirring in undercroft because knowingly or not, creator or carrier, my vain, thoughtless daughter designed this temple to greed and when she entered, the evil sprang to life. Damn it. Damn this house and damn each ornament and every stick of furniture my daughter fed into its maw. Damn Little Manette and her voracious will, damn Dakin for his folly. Damn me.
CHAPTER 14
Dell
Who am I now that she’s seen me? He doesn’t know. He was an unknown quantity here, and as far as the people in the house were concerned, more or less invisible. Until today. Stupid, stupid, jumping in to help Lane Hale, but that carton probably outweighed her. She’d never get it out of the car single-handed. He couldn’t just hang back and watch her wrestle a box bigger than she is.
But they’ve all seen him now: this pretty woman and her kid and needy old Ivy, who seems to depend on him for something he has zero power to provide, and to complete the set, scooter lady’s mean-looking sisters, who had no idea he lived under the porch. The evil— twins, he decides— just spilled out the front door, pissed off and sputtering. They can’t see past the porch rail but they’re fixed on him like star witnesses scrutinizing mug shots, bent on making the ID that sends him up the river for whatever the hell he did.
He and the kid have an understanding, and Lane? She likes me. Yes. He knows her name. He knows a lot about the women in this house, stealing information without their knowing it. She’d know him anywhere, not by name, because names can morph in seconds and in that instant, change lives. It’s the vibe. Kindred outsiders, at war with the ethos, the static, congested nature of the house. They were shoving the box along when the matched set came out on the porch, one barking, “What’s that?” “Who’s out there?” “No strangers on this property!” and the other squawking, “Elena, what were you thinking?” and “I’m warning you!” while at their backs poor scooter lady shuttled, begging them to get out of her way.
